Save my curtains!

So I get that we should be trying to sleep in the dark. And I get that the presence of artificial light (alarm clock, smoke detector) is disruptive to sleep. And I understand blackout curtains in a city environment where there are street lights, headlights, etc. But I live in the country, and my three big double windows on two walls of my bedroom look out on pasture and woods. I have beautiful white lace curtains that let in the moonlight and the rays of the rising sun. To me this seems to be a more primal way to sleep/wake than an artificially darkened room. Wouldn't Grok sleep in the moonlight and rise with the sun? Or am I missing something?

I prefer to have lighter curtains. SO likes room to be like a cave, it is hard for me to get out of bed when I can't even see any light. Unfortunately he wins this battle because we have an office building directly behind us that has super-bright exterior lights on all night. If you don't have artificial lights at night shining in, keep those pretty curtains!

If your schedule + seasonal sunrise time are compatible then it's no problem. The main test is whether you stir naturally or feel jolted by the alarm. If it's the latter then keeping a mask on hand might be a good compromise.

Not many people do -- although probably most did before the invention of electric light. In fact, they'd probably be up ready to milk cows and whatnot before dawn.

Still, if you're in bed most nights a hour or two before midnight it's probably not too much of a problem. The important thing is not to have a lot of light shining in your eyes for some while before you go to bed. Best is table lamps rather than ceiling lights and red bulbs rather than white. Worst of all are TVs, videos, and computer screens (although you can mitigate that with the program f.lux). With those you have light balanced for daylight -- blue-light -- shining directly into your eyes. It mucks up your biochemistry, which is dependent on light-sensitive hormones. More on light colour here:

If you were living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle you might get up in the night and spend some time chatting and socializing -- but if you did the only light would be a fire, which is red light. As a modern person if you find you need to get up in the night, best to use a torch with a red filter fitted, so as not to set off the wrong hormonal cascades and make it harder for yourself to get back to sleep.

Anyway ... if you're so far out in the country that there's no light-pollution and if you are getting enough sleep I'd doubt your curtains are a problem. You should be getting around eight hours sleep a night -- and anything up to ten in winter. That seems to be normal. It's sometimes said that some people need less, but experiments seem to show that even people who confidently state that this is true of them will sleep for eight hours or more if put in a really dark environment. It would seem that the light is disturbing their sleep and they're not even aware of it.

Some people have claimed that somewhat leaky curtains are said to be best for women (provided there's no light pollution) because it's claimed that the waxing and waning of the moon helps regulate their cycle. I don't know whether there's any definite proof of that, however.

I think I would go by whether you're getting enough sleep. If you're not getting at least eight hours a night, your room could be too light. If you are, I'd take it that the conditions are likely fine.

I think I myself must get enough, because (1) I tend to have a short quiet wakeful period in the night -- something that used to be true of most people in the past -- and (2) because I tend to wake some while before the alarm goes off. Neither of those would be true if I wasn't getting enough sleep.

It may be worth adding that you don't have to get rid of the curtains, even if you find when assessing your sleep that you may not be getting quite enough and that they may be the reason. it's possible to buy pretty thick blackout curtain-liners. You don't even have to stitch them in: you can just hang 'em behind the curtains. If necessary, that would keep out a bit more light while still allowing some light to spill over the top of the curtains and around their edges.

But maybe everything is fine just as it is. I would go by how much sleep you're currently getting.

I live at 57 north so get 18 hours of daylight mid summer and 18 hour nights mid winter! For me a blackout lining in the curtains means I can keep the bedroom sensibly sleepy dark (not pitch black by any means) for 8-9 sleeping hours through the spring and summer when you can just about read a newspaper with no additional lighting 24 hours a day for about a 6 week period. During the winter I use a daylight alarm clock (beeping is optional) it raises light gradually for the 30 minutes before you want to wake so you get a natural light-triggered awakening. It works brilliantly (and has a dusk sun-set function too for falling asleep) and has enabled me to have a more regular night time sleep going to bed around 10 ish with a consistently darkened room and waking around 6 ish to get up with a light room (regardless of the fact that in mid winter the sun doesn't make the horizon for another three hours - during those months we have to switch all the lights on as we make our way from the already 'day lit' bedroom we've woken up to - but it's made a big difference to how we feel and makes living at this latitude much more enjoyable!).

It's sometimes said that some people need less, but experiments seem to show that even people who confidently state that this is true of them will sleep for eight hours or more if put in a really dark environment. It would seem that the light is disturbing their sleep and they're not even aware of it.

Off topic --

I've sometimes wondered whether Lady Thatcher damaged her health through not taking enough sleep. She apparently used to take about four hours:

I guess she thought she had too much important work to do. It seems not unusual with these driven personalities. Bill Clinton was the same. (And maybe there's a link here to Clinton's over-consumption of carbohydrates and obesity: subjects who've been deprived of sleep in clinical setting have been found to go insulin-resistant pretty quickly and to begin to crave carbohydrate.)

Anyway, Margaret Thatcher was obviously a highly intelligent (if somewhat narrow) woman and a very forceful character. But later in life she developed dementia and became a dipsomaniac. You have to wonder if that was the ultimate result of all that lost sleep. Queen Elizabeth II, who is the same age, seems perfectly sprightly and with-it, despite a demanding schedule -- but then she probably takes some sleep.